Basic pharmaceuticals including APIs became even more important revenue generators for Ireland in 2013 according to new data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The net selling value of products made and sold by Irish firms in 2013 was €89.9bn ($121.5bn) up 4.6% on the previous year, thanks mainly to the value of basic pharmaceutical products and preparations made in the country growing 7.2% to €29bn.

Drugs and chemicals also contributed a bigger share of revenue according to a CSO spokesman, who told in-Pharmatechnologist.com that: “As a percentage of total industrial production in 2013, pharmaceuticals and chemicals accounted for 44.6%.”

In 2012, revenue from manufacturing in Ireland was €85.9bn with pharmaceuticals and chemicals accounted for 43.7% of all sales.

New entrants drive

The CSO spokesman declined to specify what had driven the drug manufacturing growth, explaining that the PRODCOM survey “collects details of the manufacturing activities and/or industrial services relating to industrial units for the year.

He added that: “Information relates to the sales and or fees earned in relation to all products manufactured in Ireland or outsourced abroad by our enterprises and sold during the year in Ireland or throughout the world.

“As the survey reported the Nett Selling Value (NSV) we can only report aggregated values. The values and volumes reported by individual units are subject to confidentiality rules and cannot be disclosed.”

According to a report
in the Irish Independent “the rise in value is attributed to a range of factors, including the fact that new entrants were included in the data and that a blockbuster drug came off patent only halfway through the year.”

The 2013 figures also underline the importance of the pharmaceuticals for Ireland’s manufacturing sector relative to other EU member states where – also according to the survey - 11.7% of industrial revenue comes from drug making.

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